Hello all, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the saga, please refer to:
http://www.rohrbaughforum.com/YaBB.cgi?board=R9S;action=display;num=1147969546I got a call from Karl Rohrbaugh last Wednesday, 6-7-06, and he described the warranty work done on my gun. He said the guide rod threads were out of spec by .005", and broke as a result. He also said there was some sort of spur on the barrel that was causing the malfunctions. The barrel was replaced, and he personally ran 100 rounds through the gun without any malfunctions. He said he fired 50 rounds of ball and 50 Gold Dots, cleaned it up and would be ship it out the next day.
I received the gun two days later, for overall turnaround time of 12 days. I thought that was pretty good, and I was impressed that he took the time to call me. A friend who has had some problems with his Kahr PM40 has not yet heard from Jason Moon...
I just got back from the range, having fired about 120 rounds. The results were disappointing.
I fired one box of Blazer Brass 115gr. ball, and had many failures to feed and failures to go fully into battery. The failures to feed were of the type where the breechface rides up over the base of the cartridge. These are easily cleared by pulling back on the slide and releasing, driving the round home. The failures to go fully into battery were cleared by simply pressing on the back of the slide, and the slide would close on the round. Out of 50 rounds, there were about 10 failures.
I then fired 40 rounds of 115gr. Gold Dots, with miserable results. It would jam constantly. I was never able to get through an entire magazine without some sort of failure, and sometimes it would be every other round. Out of 40 rounds, I had at least 12 malfunctions. I quit counting!
Most took the form of the aforementioned breechface sliding over the base of the round, but some were very puzzling. In one instance, the slide failed to fully close, coming up about a quarter inch short. I tried pushing on the rear of the slide but it would not budge. I couldn't tell what it was binding on, so I ejected the round and discovered that the next round in the mag had a big gouge in it where the breechface had dug into it. It seems that the rounds were tipping inside the mag and dragging on the slide's underside to the point where it would hang up.
I then decided to switch to some 115gr. WWB ball. The gun was pretty dirty by this point, so I didn't have much hope. Surprisingly, the pup gobbled these up without a hitch. I got about halfway through the box when I discovered that the grip screws on both sides were backing out. Arrrgh! I put the pup to rest at that point.
I'll tighten up the screws and test some more ammo, but I'm really starting to suspect the magazines at this point. If the rounds are not being presented properly, that would account for all of my problems. However, both mags have the same problems. Did Karl use my magazines during his test firing? I don't know.
Before leaving the range, I fired 50 rounds of 125gr. 38 Special +P's through my scandium J-frame carry gun. There were no failures of any kind.